The present invention relates to a road plate assembly for covering areas of repair in a roadway driving surface. More particularly, the present invention relates to a booted road plate which is arranged to cover an area of repair in a roadway surface and anchored in place to resist movement caused by vehicles traveling on the roadway surface.
The invention is directed to the field of utility work where water valves, gas valves, and manholes exist within the confines of driving surfaces. This invention is particularly aimed toward the repair and/or replacement of utility valve boxes and manholes where minor excavations have occurred.
The utility gas or water valve boxes or manholes are buried underground and can be used to gain access to underground water or gas pipelines. One reason access to the pipelines is required is to allow utility companies to actuate valves in the pipelines to move such valves between an open and closed position to control the flow of water or gas through the underground pipeline.
Repair work on the buried utility valve boxes is performed usually to replace a faulty valve box, raise the top of the valve box to street level after street resurfacing, or gain access to valve boxes which have been paved over during street resurfacing. Many utility valve boxes are located in or under roadways and the roadway must be excavated to gain access to the repair area. A vehicle traveling on the roadway can be damaged if it is allowed to drive into the excavated area around the valve box under repair. Vehicle intrusion into an excavated repair area can also lead to damage of the valve box or further destruction of the repair area. Therefore to allow vehicle traffic to pass into the excavated repair area when repair operations are not being conducted, such as during nights, week-ends, bad weather, or the waiting time for concrete poured around a valve into the repair area to cure, etc., the excavated repair area around the valve box must be covered.
It is known to use barricades or workers with flags to divert traffic away from an area on a roadway that is under repair. However, these barricades and workers hinder traffic movement on the roadway.
Conventional road plate assemblies for covering excavated areas of repair in a roadway driving surface generally include large, approximately 4 feet.times.8 feet (1.22 meters.times.2.44 meters), steel plates, weighing approximately 1,000 pounds (454 Kg), to cover the area of repair as shown in FIG. 1. The conventional road plates 10 are large enough to cover big holes and heavy enough to resist displacement by street traffic. Nevertheless, the large steel plates 10 must often be held in place using nails or pins 12 driven through holes provided in the plate 10 or around the edge of the plate 10 and into the driving surface 14 or underlying ground 16 to ensure secure placement. Installation of the large steel plates 10 over an excavated repair area 18 requires a mechanized lifting device 20 such as a backhoe or small crane. The large steel plates 10 also require a lifting device to load the plates onto a truck or trailer for transport to and from a repair work site.
It would be advantageous to provide a road plate assembly which has a minimum size and weight. A road plate assembly with a minimum size and weight increases ease of installation by allowing installation by one or two workers rather than a mechanized lifting device and increases ease of moving the road plate assembly to and from the work site. The cost of the repair work is advantageously decreased by reducing the number of workers and time and the amount of mechanized equipment required to transport and install the road plate assembly.
According to the present invention, a booted road plate assembly is provided to cover an excavated repair area. The booted road plate assembly includes a plate sized to cover the excavated repair area and an anchoring device appended to the underside of the plate and configured to hold the road plate in place over an excavated repair area.
One feature of a road plate assembly in accordance with the present invention is that the road plate has a reduced size and weight compared to a conventional road plate. The improved road plate does not need to be as large and heavy as conventional road plates because it has an anchoring device mounted on its underside that is arranged to engage an underground fixture in the area under repair so that the road plate is held in place over the area under repair. This improved small and lightweight road plate assembly minimizes the labor and equipment costs associated with roadway repairs involving excavated holes which must be covered temporarily by a road plate of some sort.
The booted road plate is a steel road plate with the unique ability to lock into and onto existing roadway boxes, gas and water valve boxes, manholes, and other underground fixtures. This permits the unobstructed movement of traffic on a roadway even before street resurfacing around the utility fixture has cured or has even been performed.
In a preferred embodiment of the present invention, the road plate anchoring device includes a shaft that is appended to the bottom side of the plate and arranged to extend downwardly at a right angle to the road plate a predetermined distance into an underground utility valve box or the like. A boot is attached to the distal end of the shaft and the boot has a diameter greater than the diameter of the shaft. The boot is arranged to lie in coaxial relation to the shaft.
Typically, a utility valve box is buried underground beneath a roadway and is connected to an underlying piping system. The utility valve box is formed to include a cylindrical tube that extends downwardly into the ground a predetermined distance. Generally, some digging into the road and the underlying ground is needed to perform necessary repairs to the buried utility valve box.
Illustratively, the outer diameter of the boot is approximately 0.25 inches (0.635 centimeters) less than the inside diameter of the cylindrical tube formed in the utility valve box, manhole, or other underground fixture. Therefore, it will be understood that the outside diameter of the boot can be sized to match any size of utility valve box or underground fixture.
Advantageously, the road plate boot is configured to fit snugly inside a vertical passageway formed in the buried utility valve box or underground fixture. The road plate boot may only move straight up and down in the vertical valve box passageway, therefore no lateral or angular movement of the overlying road plate can occur. The diameter of the boot is larger than the diameter of the shaft to allow only the boot to engage the utility valve box. Therefore, forces imparted to the road plate due to roadway traffic are transmitted down to the underlying boot where structural integrity is the greatest and at a point deep down away from the road plate, roadway, and portions of the utility valve box in the area under repair. This feature of the invention prevents forces due to roadway traffic from impairing the condition of the repair operations such as freshly poured concrete or repair parts installed at the roadway surface.
In an alternative embodiment, the booted road plate includes a road plate covering the area under repair, a hollow shaft including a proximal end appended to the bottom side of the plate that extends downwardly into the utility valve box or manhole to a distal end of the hollow shaft, and a boot assembly at the distal end of the shaft. The boot assembly includes a boot-expanding member or tapered boot appended to the distal end of the shaft and a threaded rod. The threaded rod is appended to the top side of the plate and arranged to extend through the hollow shaft and into threaded engagement with a compression plate and nut downward of the boot-expanding member.
The boot assembly also includes an expandable boot or expansion boot appended to the top side of the compression plate. Rotational movement is imparted to the threaded rod to raise the expandable boot into compressive engagement with the boot-expanding member. When the boot-expanding member and expandable boot are squeezed together, the boot-expanding member acts to expand the expandable boot to a radially expanded position engaging the cylindrical inner wall of the utility valve box to anchor the shaft in a utility valve box.
One feature of the road plate assembly in accordance with the alternative embodiment is that the expandable boot in its radially expanded position is engaged with the inner wall of the utility valve box. The road plate assembly will be frictionally engaged with the utility valve box and thus no movement of the booted road plate is expected to occur. This alternative embodiment prevents the road plate from bouncing up and down due to roadway traffic.
Additional objects, features, and advantages of the invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art upon consideration of the following detailed description of a preferred embodiment exemplifying the best mode of carrying out the invention as presently perceived.